Who knew President Trump was on to something? Forget ‘finger lickin’ goodness. Taking the President’s lead, fried chicken may be safest eaten with a knife — not just a spork.

Well at least that was the lawsuit filed October 31, 2016 against Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., et al. by Gulfport, Mississippi lawyer Paul Newton Jr.

In his complaint, Newton alleged that for want of a knifehe choked on a piece of fried chicken breast and required emergency surgery the same evening to remove the chicken piece from his throat.

He claimed it was a consequence of Popeyes’ failure to provide customers with a plastic knife with their drive-thru orders. Neither man or woman eats by spork alone.

In addition to his medical and pain and suffering damages, Newton also asked for an order requiring Popeyes to provide its drive-thru customers “with the appropriate utensil or utensils such as a plastic knife to enable such customers to cut their purchased food orders into appropriate portions.”

But in Newton’s case, he later dropped the suit on his own because of “extreme comments directed to me and my family.”

Bottom line, don’t choke on fried chicken — not when there’s still FREE CLE. Along with the standard disclaimers about availability; jurisdictional creditworthiness; and content quality, here’s the latest knife and fork-free update.

FREE CLE

Attorney Protective

“Many lawyers sued for malpractice gain clarity on best practices only after it is too late. This webinar is designed to help you acquire a clearer understanding of the risks by studying what went wrong for other attorneys during their malpractice cases.”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” I thought of Gandhi’s quotewhen I read about Tom Winston, who at 73 graduates from the University of Tennessee Law School this month. Retired and having concluded there’s “only so much golf you can play,”he decided to attend law school at age 70.

Besides having a resilient and hungry mind, Winston also benefited from something unique to the Volunteer State. Tennesseans 65 years and older can attend any state public institution of higher learning tuition-free. Winston says he’s “surprised more people haven’t taken advantage of it.”

Speaking of free learning, below are the latest links to free continuing legal education programs, both scheduled and on-demand. As always, there are no warranties of continued availability, content quality, or creditworthiness in your jurisdiction.

Engagingly educational continuing legal education program? I don’t remember when. But who said lawyers were supposed to be engaged let alone entertained at these programs. Continuing legal education is instead meant to supposedly make lawyers more competent and more professional. But the thing is, there’s never been empirical support for that proposition.

All the same, virtually all state supreme courts continue to mandate CLE while state bar program providers continue to pirouette around whether the programs improve attorney competence or enhance professionalism.

Indeed, among my favorite dance meanders are the ones offered by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Ad Hoc Committee on Continuing Legal Education, which was tasked in 2007 “to determine whether it could find a compelling case against the establishment of mandatory continuing legal education (MCLE or CLE) in New Jersey.”

“Admittedly,” the Committee said in its 2008 report, “empirical data affirming the effectiveness of mandatory CLE do not appear to exist.”But did that bit of obviousness stop the Committee from predictably recommending the comprehensive implementation of mandatory CLE?

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Of course not, even as the Committee was admitting that the absence of evidentiary support “has been acknowledged by almost every jurisdiction that has adopted mandatory CLE, perhaps in recognition that the critical problems associated with defining competence and developing a test regimen to measure for improved performance have not been resolved.”

Or just maybe, the better reason for the lingering inability to find a competency testing metric is that it’s preferable to keep offering up that ‘X is true because there is no proof that X is false.’ Or as the Committee said in its report, “Given that continuing education is inherent in the concept of professionalism and the widely held view that voluntary continuing legal education is beneficial, what reasons, other than the absence of empirical data, mitigate against making CLE mandatory? We have found few, if any.”

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So as of January 1, 2010, Rule 1:43has required all New Jersey licensed attorneys to take 24 hours of continuing legal education every two years, including at least 4 hours on topics related to ethics and/or professionalism.

And with that preamble, here’s the latest FREE CLE update. The usual disclaimers about availability, content and jurisdictional creditworthiness apply.

Two months ago, the State Bar of Arizona ran a lame contest via Instagram to encourage voters to “Finish the Ballot!”

Voters here aren’t particularly fond of playing “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” to figure out who to vote for among scores of judges up for judicial retention elections. The numbers can run upwards of 50 to 60 — even 70. Unfortunately, most of the populace has never heard of the candidates. And for Red State Arizonans, it’s even tougher since judicial elections aren’t partisan.

So in lieu of throwing darts at a list or visiting the judicial performance review website, which 99% of the time rubber-stamps its approval anyway — many voters take a pass. They either vote “No” on everyone or they don’t vote altogether for the judges.

Faced with this, the Bar, at the behest of the Court, — came up with its contest to encourage the electorate to fill out the ballots completely. In fairness, it’s is a tall order trying to pour energy into voter ennui.

Just the same this wasn’t the contest to do it, not by any stretch. Assuming anyone paid attention, the contest was purely a sop for those crying out for something — anything to stem the tide of persistent problematic ballot roll-off.

The sole prize for the winning video entry was supposed to have been a $250 Visa gift card. But since the November election, it’s been a minor mystery on whether or not the Bar received any contest video entries or whether anybody actually won. I’ve seen no pronouncements from our friendly state bar, which is highly unusual since this stands in stark contrast to all the email announcements ballyhooing the start of the contest. Odd, too, as the local Bar is quite fond of filling up lawyer inboxes with unsolicited email newsletters, redundant CLE advertisements and just today, an especially unwelcome “time to pay your State Bar of Arizona’s annual dues” email.

At least for now, it appears mum’s the word on “Finish the Ballot,” which naturally prompts the question whether or not the Bar ever plans to “Finish the Contest.”

To be clear, I don’t actually care a rat’s hindquarters about the contest. This is merely my snarky segue into posting more FREE CLE offerings for lawyers still trying to “Finish the CLE” by year-end. The usual disclaimers on content; continued availability; and jurisdictional approval apply.

The state’s highest court also enacted a new rule, ER 3.10, “Credible and Material Exculpatory Information about a Convicted Person.” The new rule follows the same principles underpinning the rule for prosecutors and imposes responsibility on all Arizona lawyers who credibly know of exculpatory evidence to promptly disclose that “credible and material evidence that a convicted defendant did not commit an offense of which the defendant was convicted.”

The Comment to ER 3.10 explains: “Rectifying the conviction and preventing the incarceration of an innocent person are core values of the judicial system and matters of vital concern to the legal profession. Because of the importance of these principles, this Rule applies to all members of the Bar except prosecutors, whose special duties with respect to disclosure of new, credible and material exculpatory evidence after conviction set forth in ER 3.8 (g), (h), and (i).”

Small favors. At least the Arizona Bar’s not nicking its lawyers like ALI CLE for CLE likes to do. That organization is quite ‘proud’ of its one-hour webcasts, which typically come in at just two sawbucks shy of $200.

FREE CLE

But happily for lawyers who just want CLE that’s FREE, there are complimentary programs still available elsewhere. Along with the usual disclaimers of continued access, content and availability of jurisdictional credit, here are the latest FREE CLE updates.

With just a month till year-end, some lawyers are in the throes of final procrastination to meet calendar year mandatory continuing legal education requirements. And yeah, those are the honest ones.

There are lawyers I meet who trigger my well-calibrated “B.S.” detector bragging about how they “always end up with more CLE than they need.” Yeah – – – right. And I always get all the gifts I want at Christmas.

So to allay a panic attack, here’s another “Free CLE” update. And the usual caveats apply. If a link is broken or if the content sucks or if your jurisdiction won’t approve it, don’t blame me.

But ahead of that, indulge me one more soapbox rant on mandatory CLE – – – if you don’t mind. Make no mistake. Continuing legal education is fungible. We’re talking commodity, here, amigos. One pork belly is the same as another. Or when you can tell the difference between one frijole over another, let me know.

And then there’s the content. “Interesting CLE” is oxymoronic and “useful CLE” chimerical. And this is regardless of what providers charge and “Why most continuing legal education sucks.“ But more importantly, when something’s commoditized, the only difference, then, is price. And “Free” always trumps a price tag.

So unlike the greedy online shills, the dog-and-pony moonlighters, and the bottom-line hungry local and state bar associations, I don’t have any financial self-interest in CLE. See “Who’s making money from MCLE?”

To borrow a quote from Eric Sevareid, I post free continuing legal education courses on this blog, “To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

So for all the lawyers not so fortunate to be sitting on “more CLE than they need,” and who’re still short on credits – – – not to worry, here’s more online FREE CLE.

The seminar, which was held March 31, 2011 in Seattle, was approved by the Washington State Bar Association for 3.0 Ethics and 2.0 General CLE credits, 5.0 credits total.

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Pennsylvania Bar Institute (PBI) –

This one’s hard to explain. Other than – why give it away when you can charge for it? PBI makes available each week, a “free online course with all the features of the regular course, except CLE credit.”

But I would think this shouldn’t keep non-Pennsylvania lawyers from submitting these “free” courses for credit in their own jurisdictions since otherwise, these ‘ducks look like and quack like ducks’ even if PBI says they’re not mallards.

A lot of traffic was driven to this blog the last weeks of 2010 by lawyers seeking free CLE. Not all state bars operate CLE requirements on a calendar year. But those that operate on a calendar basis, find procrastinating lawyers scrambling to beat the year-end deadline.

Not to worry, though for Missouri and Arizona lawyers who have annual compliance periods running from July 1 to June 30. But for the rest of the last minute lollilagging dawdlers, it was crunch time before that buggy turned into a pumpkin at midnight December 31st.

On its website, the Missouri Bar through MoBarCLE says it “is committed to providing continuing legal education programs at an affordable price to its members. Program registrants who are unable to afford seminar course fees due to financial hardship may complete an application for a complete waiver or reduced fee.”

Illinois also has a Hardship Policy. It requires lawyers who believe they qualify for financial hardship to send the bar an explanatory email.

The National Academy of Continuing Legal Education also offers applications for attorneys experiencing a financial hardship. Attorneys who have such a need must complete a Hardship Application Form.

Free CLE Updates.

Free CLE updates follow. And as always the usual self-serving disclaimers apply about quality and continued availability or as Elton John once famously said, “Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player.”

“Lawyers Targeted For Fraud. Don’t be a Victim!” This free program deals with the ongoing attempts being made to defraud lawyers by e-mails from individuals pretending to be potential clients.

Low cost section offerings.

As a final add, many state bars, including Arizona and Nevada, offer very inexpensive live CLE programs to section members. Last month, for example, the Sole Practitioner and Small Firm Section of the Arizona Bar offered for the price of $20, 3.75 hours of CLE credit, including a .75 hour of ethics for a live probate and guardianship primer, hot buffet breakfast included.

And on a regular basis, the Elder Law Section of the Nevada State Bar offers live one-hour CLE telephone conferences on various elder law subjects, which are complimentary to section members.

Bottom line is that it’s foolish to shell out $200 to $300 or more for continuing legal education. There’s better pricing, there’s sufficient program diversity and quality to cover virtually all subject areas, not to mention the ease of access. And besides, CLE can also be had at no-cost!

And as I’ve said many times before, high cost doesn’t correlate to high quality. See, for example, my irreverent October post, which admittedly caused some of my colleagues to take offense, Why most continuing legal education sucks.